(no subject)
It is evening, and the conservatory is empty. Well ... nearly empty. Hellfire security has been politely redirecting the guests who have an eye to leave the more well-trod paths of the Club, with excuses ranging from repairs to the window to some other form of random maintenance that renders the rooms unusable. Naturally, these interdicts are only casually enforced. There is a Pawn in servant's livery standing guard at the heavy door. (It's Luke. He always gets the difficult ones.)
Inside, a lone figure wanders over the brick paths in the slightly harsh light of the lamps, her mind fairly composed all things considered.
Two drinks sloshing warm in his belly, Bahir nevertheless manages a perfectly even stride as he meanders down Hellfire's halls. There is yet another drink in his hand, a few splashes of dark amber liquid caught in cut crystal. He nurses this third, doing no more than wet his lips when he stops to look at this painting, that framed photograph -- /that/ statue, outside, through the windows. He snorts. His path leads him in the direction of the conservatory, and he pauses to cock a silent eyebrow at Luke while he tips his head toward the door.
Luke lifts his eyebrows slightly but inclines his head in a nod to the request. "She's uh--" If he knows who's in there and wants to go in anyway, sure! "Just holler if you need me," he says, and then shrugs a bit. Telepath probably won't need to holler ... right? Right?! He even shifts his weight and reaches to open the door for him, since the solid, weighty door can be hard to manage without both hands.
Smile faintly arrogant in his abilities to deal with one crazy person, Bahir nods. "Thank you," he says simply, slipping through the open door into the conservatory. He draws a deep breath once inside, quietly, but the release of it comes in a sigh that slips through the air to announce another presence -- as though the door did not do that on its own. He lifts his glass to his lips, wetting them yet again as he looks for Ellen through the green.
The sound both of door and breath draw Ellen's attention immediately from her perch. She knelt on the brick path immediately before the fountain and its lilies and koi, watching the glimmers of the flitting fishes in the cool water; now she surges quickly to her feet, and once standing, stands very straight. Her hair is long and loose, fanning about her shoulders -- no more freaky bald head -- and her wardrobe is quiet elegance again, if there is no labcoat, but navy slacks and a faint silvery sheen to the grey silk blouse she wears. And she's wearing shoes. Sensible shoes. No heels. Heels are for people who have any need at all to be taller.
"I hope I'm not interrupting," Bahir says into the quiet. His words are simple, without any slur yet from the alcohol. He's dressed neatly enough: white dress shirt, dark new jeans. Not a suit, though. Nope.
"Hello." The syllables are uncertain. Ellen's pale gaze flicks over him, taking in details and filing them away in some cabinet of her brain. She folds her hands neatly behind her back and takes a few low steps over the brick. "I know you." She is uncertain in these syllables, too; the memory plays tricks, and the long stay in prison leaves her hazy on all manner of details.
Answer in a simple syllable, Bahir says, "Yes." His gaze is level on hers, height matched. He does not move as she stirs, but rather watches her briefly, and then looks past. His gaze lingers on the lush green with a twinge of something wistful. "I like it in here."
Ellen still cannot immediately place his features. She studies him with a quiet frankness, searching her memory for them, wondering if she healed him or hurt him, if she should be afraid or battle ready -- yet if he is here and her guard is not concerned, she is not in danger, would not be in danger. Her head tips slightly to one side. "It is pleasant," she says, and nods once. "There is more life in here. The plants. The fish. I missed ... seeing life around, feeling it."
Curiosity roused, Bahir's gaze skips back to fix on Ellen. He inclines his head. "Quite understandable." Brief sympathy offered, he moves quickly on to the most interesting bits, the pace of words picking up. "Can you feel it, then? Do your talents extend to all forms of life?" He seems to have no fear of her, at least -- rightly, or wrongly. He is steady under her searching regard.
"If it lives." Ellen reaches out with her foot and nudges at one of the pots that bears the leafy fronds of a plant. "And if I can touch. If it has living cells, they are in my dominion." She speaks slowly, contrasted to the speed of his words -- not because she thinks he will have trouble understanding, but because after so much time defiant, gentle explanation comes very strangely to her.
"Interesting." Bahir wets his lips again on his drink. If he swallows, it is a bare, token thing. He taps a finger against the rim of the glass. "I hadn't realized."
"Plants are more limited." Ellen reaches out to brush her fingertips lightly along the flat spread of a leaf, watching her own hand with an expression of mild interest. Her consciousness expands with the force of habit to include the cellular structure of the living plant. "Fewer useful applications. And I can do nothing at all with the dead."
Gaze transferring to the plant, Bahir watches as Ellen strokes the leaf. He seems to be waiting for it to grow eyes, perhaps. "Single-celled organisms?"
It does not grow eyes. It does not really do anything: she pets it, but leaves it intact, and after a moment withdraws her hand again to return her attention to him. "I have to be able to touch it. Most single-celled organisms, microorganisms and such, are probably too small for me to do very much with. I have never really had access to any amoebas, not even at university." Frowning contemplatively, she allows, "If I had one I could try."
Bahir looks a trifle disappointed. He takes another sip of his drink, and this time, it is a long swallow: half the contents remaining in the glass. "If you are interested, I can see about getting you something of the sort. We don't exactly have any sort of lab facilities here, though. Pity. Maybe we should."
The flicker of a smile touches Ellen's mouth at the corners, and she inclines her head. "It has been some time since ... I had any energy to spare for theoretical work," she says, a wistful air creeping through the mild formality that drapes her words. "It used to be all that I did. Learning what I could do. Finding where I could not." Her gaze briefly flicks to the glass and then back to his face as she straightens, almost imperceptibly, and her hands fold behind her once more. "This is a social club of some sort, is it not? Laboratories do not strike me as especially." She pauses, and frowns, thinking. "--Covert," is the word she selects.
Bahir smiles to match her: a faint flicker of expression just touching the corner of his mouth. "You should see the basement."
Ellen is slow to understand. She has not seen the basement. She asks, "Not covert?"
"Not exactly." Humor a low whisper in his voice, Bahir tips his head. "You /get/ to it through a secret elevator in the pantry -- among other ways."
"In the pantry." Ellen repeats the words and blinks at him owlishly. She suspects a joke. "I have been here before. I do not remember much. I remember you," she adds, with a moment's clarity chiming through her cool alto. "We brought you here, before -- before I ... left. Before I--" She cuts off that train of recollection entirely, ruthlessly rechanneling her brain onto another direction. "You watched me at work. Telepathy."
Bahir takes another sip of his drink, humor falling away quite sharply. "Yes."
Ellen looks at him with a sharpening glance, perhaps catching a note of wrongness -- she has said something, done something incorrect. The memories are fuzzy, and come not in the form of image or sound or event, but in a faint whispering of old work that she vaguely recalls doing: a concussion; an old, deep pain, buried in a hobbled limb. Her hands fall to her sides, her fingers curling inward into fists. "I am sorry," she says after a pause. "I do not remember why but I think -- I think that I should know. No one has ever seen me at work before or since. It is not ordinarily anything I can show."
"Don't apologize." Rubbing at his eye with the side of his thumb, Bahir snorts softly. The last of his drink tossed back, he steps forward toward a wrought iron table to discard the glass with the assumption that someone else will deal with it, later. "It was interesting. Your mutation is fascinating."
Ellen looks at the glass he has left there, and cants her head. Littering. But this is no real park, and there are servants. An odd thought, servants. Even at her wealthiest, she was alone. Her gaze flicks up, and traces idle shapes in the shadows of the ordered conservatory as she draws a breath of the green-blessed air. "You are not afraid?"
Bahir opens his hands in a slight shrug, looking back toward Ellen with an arch of his eyebrows. "Of you? Should I be?" His shrug folds in the clasp of fingers, and then opens again so that he can count points on his fingers: "You know I'm a mutant. When you've acted against mutants, it has been in self-defense, which does not apply here. We both serve the same master. And I could probably knock you out before you touched me."
"Logical." Ellen lifts one of her hands, slender fingers spreading slightly as she shows it open. "You should not fear, no. You will come to no harm by my hand. I cannot recall if I gave you the words before," she says, frowning slightly again as she shakes her head. "Are you a Brother?" She seems bemused by the question even as she asks it. "You were not, I think. If any of us are anymore."
"You said something of the sort, yes, before. I think." Hand braced on the table's surface, Bahir shifts his weight into a slight lean. His expression closed off, he gives a slight shake of his head. "No," he affirms, sharing a touch of her bemusement. "I don't know what's become of your fellows. Dr. Lensherr knows, perhaps."
"Jason was there. He gave me his pants." Ellen's frown deepens a moment, and then she shakes her head again, this time as if to clear it. "Perhaps I will ask. Perhaps I do not want to know. We were torn asunder and spread far and wide. I remember ... being angry." She makes a faint, frustrated noise and looks sharply at the younger mutant suddenly. "Prison does not agree with me. I do not recommend it."
"I shall endeavor to avoid it," Bahir says, eyebrows arching back to Ellen's sharp look. "How are you doing? You were--" He breaks off, looking for the right word. By his shrug, he doesn't find it, but rather a substitute: "--foggy."
"It is hard to think clearly. Sometimes." Ellen ventures the caveat thoughtfully, dropping it after the initial confession. She takes half a step towards him and the table, her hands smoothening down the silken sheen of her shirt as she drops her gaze. "I do not know for certain. Sometimes I feel clear and bright and sharp, as though my mind is in order and everything is as it should be. As much as it should be as ever it is. Yet my memories are often uncertain, unreal. Perhaps my neurons misbehave. I do not remember what they are supposed to look like."
"I do not know what they are supposed to look like, either." Bahir rubs his knuckles along the line of his jaw, scraping over stubble as he frowns at her in slight puzzlement. "I can see if they are there, though -- your memories. I can take a look, some time, and help you to try to find them. I don't know if it will work. I doubt it will, in fact. But the offer remains."
"Thank you." Ellen gives him the dip of another nod, her glance falling briefly to the glass he has abandoned on the wrought iron table before she adds with a note of agreement, "I appreciate that. Another time." Her gaze skims over the plants again, and the burbling fountain, and another smile's shadow touches her mouth. "It is not anything so ... cliche ... as amnesia, at any rate. Just fuzz. Inconvenient, but not crippling. I apologize for not recalling your name. Names are important."
Faint, fuzzy humor of the inebriated resurfacing, Bahir snorts. "I'm not all that attached to it. It is Bahir, though. Bahir al-Razi." He offers her his hand, as one would to another upon meeting for the first time, without apparent fear of any, say, stray cancers the clasp might bring. "I wish you a swift recovery, Ms. Dramstadt."
"Thank you, Mr. al-Razi." Ellen pronounces the name delicately. She meets his hand in a firm, unflinching clasp, with only the shadow of the impression of his cells reflected in her mind as she does so: skin, muscle, bone, the delicate and dextrous structures of a human hand, and her mind withdraws again as she releases his hand. "And thank you for coming to speak with me," she adds, with an inclination of her head as she takes a step back, and folds her hands behind her. "I am not very good with people but I ... do not have as much love solitude as once I did."
"You're welcome. I will try to come again." Head canted at a slight angle, Bahir regards her a moment longer, and then simply nods. He looks around again, breath drawn deep into his lungs, and then smiles slightly. "Good evening," he says, and then goes.
Ellen has a visitor. Yay!